Great Benefits of Running a Civic Engagement Project at AUCA

March 29, 2018

 

AUCA student delegation who implemented their civic engagement projects to help people in their communities spent 7 days in Budapest. This is the story of how to get to the Get Engaged conference, what it is like to participate and what its benefits are.                   

The fifth annual “Get Engaged: Student Action and Youth Leadership Conference” was held from March 16-23, 2018 in Central European University’s campus in Budapest, Hungary. The conference was organized by Bard College Center for Civic Engagement in partnership with the Community Engagement Office of Central European University and gathered 33 students from six partner universities of Bard College*.

Get Engaged conference aims to strengthen the global network of student social entrepreneurs and provides a platform for its participants to exchange ideas, share experiences, and acquire new skills through networking, trainings, and mentorship.

The format is pretty simple. Each participant presents the project, goes through Q&A session, and hears suggestions on how to improve the project. Between presentations students meet professionals, community leaders and different partners to network. They also participate in trainings and workshops to gain new skills as well as in a city tour to explore a great city of Budapest! After the conference, participants are eligible to apply for microgrants to receive supplemental funding for their projects. The amount awarded may vary between $250 and $600. This gives a great opportunity to continue and improve projects and help even more people!

This year over 100 AUCA students’ applications were received and only six were chosen to participate. To be accepted, each student had to come up with a civic engagement project, which aims to bring a positive change in the community and has real life impacts. Get Engaged 2018 participants are Arina Aparina (JMC-116), Aidai Atakulova (ECO-116), Anara Dubanaeva (BA-117), Mira Dzhakshylykova (LAS EMSD-117), Abai Pamirov (BA-116) and Shaislam Shabiev (BA-116).

Let’s hear the Get Engaged Stories from them:

Arina Aparina is the project coordinator of Teenagers in Free Enterprise (TIFE), which is

an online educational project aiming to provide high school students with practical leadership and business skills.

"Sharing experience with project leaders from different countries at the Get Engaged conference brought a lot of new ideas and motivation to the development of my own project and was most helpful to me as a participant."

Aidai Atakulova’s Osh Leadership Academy (OLA) project is coordinated along with another AUCA student Akmaral Azhimamatova. OLA is a youth engagement project that strengthens relationships between Kyrgyz and Uzbek teenagers who were the victims or witnesses of the conflict in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, in 2010.

“People usually attend the conferences in order to gain experience and knowledge, that is why I was expecting that I would get an opportunity to enrich my knowledge and add a portion of unique experience into my life. Get Engaged 2018 gave me all these, and much more. The conference made all the new relations and meetings come true, first of all, it was people who made the conference the best one in my life. So, I want to express my gratitude to those people who made it happen, and my sincere thanks to the second project leader Akmaral Azhimamatova!”

For Anara Dubanaeva it was a second and this time a successful application to participate in the conference since she last applied as a NGA student. Anara’s project is Sary-Chelek Summer Camp for Development of Youth that aims to unite urban and rural students and provides educational, networking, and personal growth opportunities through training sessions.

“As for me, I have experienced many things for the first time during the conference, and went out of my comfort zone. In 7 days I learned so much from other ambitious students who motivated me to work more on social projects. It was an unforgettable experience, and I learnt about issues in other countries, and realized myself as one of world changers who solve those issues by sharing ideas and experiences with each other. The platform of different young people breaks the misconceptions about different countries and has impacted me to see the same issues that unite us. I want to advise others to try things that scare you.”

Promoting rights and interests of disabled people through trainings in craftsmanship, financial literacy, and marketing, Mira Dzhakshylykova’s project “From Heart to Heart” helps improve employment opportunities.

“The atmosphere of the conference was the most collaborative because we were exchanging perspectives and exploring new ideas. It had the warmer atmosphere compared to all others that I had participated in before, mostly because of ice-breaking sessions and diverse experience.”

Abai Pamirov has created The Republic of Megamozgiya that provides high school students from rural areas of Kyrgyzstan with interactive, skills-based training to teach and practice budgeting, goal setting, leadership, public speaking, and teamwork.

“I have learnt that I am not alone in doing civic engagement projects and wanting to change something in the minds of youth and these thoughts support me a lot. Moreover, I saw many projects, so now I got new ideas to improve my project in the future.”

And last, but not least, is Shaislam Shabiev’s Young Grandmasters project that uses chess as a tool to teach local children about inclusion and communication, with a special focus on supporting children with Down’s Syndrome. Shaislam is a candidate for master of sports in chess of the Kyrgyz Republic.

"Get Engaged Conference is an extremely dynamic, action-oriented, skill-building conference that helped me develop my own sense of community through workshops, networking and presenting. The workshop I was most excited about during the conference was "Empathic Speech" because it helped me understand the ways to keep up and enrich relationships with team members."

You also can apply for Get Engaged next semester and thus, SIDP prepared a list of tips on how to get accepted to the Get Engaged 2019:

• Start your project NOW! Do not wait until the next call for projects! Get Engaged only accepts civic engagement projects that exist now (not ideas) or were recently completed and have results! So, the earlier you start a project, the better your chances of getting great results and therefore be accepted for the Get Engaged!
• Advertise your project on campus (and beyond)! Everyone should know about it, how great it is, how many participants you have and so on! It is important, because the more people know about it, you have a better chance to get more funds, networks and support + Get Engaged organizers are looking for projects with rich media coverage!
• Stay connected with SIDP! Even though you might not need funding for your project, you still will get benefits from SIDP. When selecting next Get Engaged participants, organizers usually ask SIDP coordinator for recommendations and in case of no information, SIDP coordinator cannot say anything about the project as well.
• Apply to Get Engaged as early as possible and take application seriously! To do that, prepare your answers to their questions beforehand, get your projects data in advance, show your motivation to participate and your willingness to share your ideas and solutions with others.
• Implement an interesting project with a clear benefit to society and scale possibility. This will make you stand out, because AUCA is a highly competitive environment and you is not the only one who applies!

Student Initiative Development Program (SIDP) provides financial support and consultations for students who run (or want to start) their own projects at AUCA! It was founded in AUCA in 2015 and already supported more than 20 project leaders! Within the program, students can apply for a grant after completing the application form along with the budget template, which can be found on: www.auca.kg/en/sidp. All submitted projects are viewed by the program coordinator and have to be approved by the program commission to receive funding. From now on SIDP will be returning with New Star articles every month with motivation, trainings/ skills, opportunities, and project updates articles!

* Bard International Network consists of Al-Quds Bard College of Arts and Sciences (East Jerusalem), American University of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan), Bard College Annandale (United States), Bard College Berlin (Germany), European Humanities University (Lithuania), and Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at St. Petersburg State University, “Smolny College” (Russia), and Central European University (Hungary).

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